Official Luthiers Forum!

My site has been overdue for a facelift and it finally got one! I've been rushing to get the new one up before an event this weekend and I'd appreciate it if folks would give it a spin and check for bugs and such. Any feedback would be appreciated.

A few things...

The header was designed by my friend Ritama http://www.ritama.com. Because I am a cheapskate and a control freak, I insisted on programming it myself and any bugs are all my own and not a reflection on her!

The original site was designed to fit in 15" screens without scrolling (yes, stone age). I decided to leave it that way if for no other reason, it would help me keep it clean and to the point. I just realized I have not looked at it on a big (like 22") screen and I'd be curious to hear if it gets lost.

Thanks for looking.

http://www.chassonguitars.com/

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http://www.chassonguitars.com

Looks good. You have some beautiful shots on there. I think you could go a little wider, but I like a narrow layout. A little border along the sides would be nice, perhaps a shadow, or a thin line. You could also find a free flash app online, or in photoshop to create a slide show of your photos. I don't like the new windows popping up just to see a picture.

I use Firefox on a Mac, but have enough experience with web design to know that you need to check all browsers. Internet Explorer will often muck up websites which look fine on the standards-compliant browsers, and working around its quirks can be a headache. Oh, and 20% of web users still have IE6, which is even worse.

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Gabriel Regalbuto
Carlsbad, California
Freedom 35!

Hi Kent....you want honest opinion, right? Here's my

1. The header is too tall - it takes up nearly half the height of my browser window (I'm using a 32" Sony Bravia HDTV as my monitor in 1280x768 pixel mode). Mind you, my website is not much better....I just compared it to yours, and my header is only a tiny bit smaller...so ignore this one if you like!
2. The page link buttons are too big also.
3. Move your mugshot to the BIO page. Prospective customers don't really care what you look like. I think they'd prefer to see a nice clean picture of one of your guitars on the homepage.
4. The main message on your homepage is fuzzy. You should move what I think should be the main message ("Welcome to my site....." etc.) to the top of the page and move the quotes somewhere else (in a smaller font).
5. There's a lot of empty space alongside the your picture on the homepage - you should use it better (see 4.)
6. Rest of the site looks good.
7. You will get a LOT of spam with your mailto: email address directly in text on the CONTACT page. Spammer's web bots trawl the net every day looking for email ID's in text on websites. If I were you, I'd make a gif/jpg picture of your email ID and put that up there (maybe in the header?). That way, real people will still be able to contact you (by typing in the email ID) but the bots won't be able to read it. Some bots are starting to get clever though, and do OCR of pictures they find on contact pages to try and extract your email ID. The way to fool them is to distort the text and/or add lines to the picture so humans can still read it, but OCR software can't.

HTH,
Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

I liked it Kent, good luck!

Greg

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Gwaltney Guitars

Hello Kent,

I checked all of the buttons and everything works for me on explorer. I have a larger monitor and the site looks fine. I have a hard time reading the text on a computer screen and like sites to be more narrow so that I can magnify the page to 150% and read without strain. If a site is too wide then the text gets corrupted and things don't work. Yours is great and I can zoom in and read with no problems.

I like your photo on the intro page, I should add one to my site. I think it connects people to you and sets the tone for your shop being you. I like personal touches, why else have a website?

I also like the tour page a lot. I have found that not all people are that interested in the "process" but those who are love being able to see what is up.

Your site gives a friendly vibe and has a personal feel, good job!

BTW, your guitars look great too.

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http://www.booneguitars.com
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stephen-Boone-guitar-builder/488208541257210

Hi Kent,
I checked it out with Firefox on a 17inch and I think it looks great. All links worked, no distractions I noticed. Excellent work also on the guitars.
Thanks!
dave

I like it Ken. I also like the self photo on the home page. I like to see who I'm dealing with. To me it's like someone answering the door and welcoming you and not like hiding behind the door saying who's there. Cool tour, I've always wanted to build a Fox neck jig. Do you also use the pin router as your binding machine? The chuck for changing pin size seems like a good idea. But that's probably a builders thing. The rest of the site seemed to work OK to me.

Ken, IE 7 on XP SP 3, everything worked fine. I hit all the links, clicked around, etc. No problems that I encountered.

Nice site, simple and to the point. I like it.

Joe

hi Kent
my surfer is a 17" imac running Safari and it looks great, uncluttered and intuitive to navigate round, well done.
It's something I want to do myself, being a mad controller and
having a son in law who's in that business has offered to do it for me.
I just like the challenge!.
yours Geordie

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some tunes on acoustic and guitar synth.
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheGeordieAdams
http://www.myspace.com/geordieadams

Site looks good. I really like on the price page how the picture of the guitar doesn't have a border.

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Mark Burton

Hook 'em Horns

Many thanks for all the suggestions! Sounds like I didn't screw up any code too badly.

Gabe, I don't like the new window for the enlargements either. I looked at some of the slide show ideas but I really wanted to keep it clean and simple. I'll keep my eyes open for better options.

Dave, funny you should mention the photo of me. I resisted that too. I know I don't want to look at me! I had a guitar shot there until last night but switched on the recommendation of several people.

Chris, my older version of a pin router is now my binding router. Same idea but I've set it up with an adjustable stop so I can use a spiral bit without a bearing. I'm glad you get the idea behind the variable sized pins. Every time another builder comes into the shop, I get excited to talk up that idea and they just nod and smile. We've got vision and the rest of the world wears bifocals

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http://www.chassonguitars.com

Hi Kent. I have not read what others have said, hurried to your site, and the first thing thast caught my eyes as clicking around is the following :

You have a page that is centered ! so, why not make the enlaged photos that pops up as you click on them centered ? and also make the background same as main ! looks streange to first come to the site and all is centered to then have to turn the head left to see the enlarged photos. Another thing was that I personally would like to see the enlarged photos slightly larger, not much but so they would atleast fit a 17 and up screen. Perhaps a + and - choice to see the photo even larger or smaller. but thats not so important.
Do check out http://www.pantheonguitars.com/ and click on some of Danas guitars and you´ll see what I mean with the +- thingy.
Other than this, it looks great. I am on a high speed connection so I cant say if its slow upload etc for those on slow connections. Look professional to me, nice colors and its really nice to be able to see a photo of the builder. It brings out a certain kind of trust that you dont get from siters thats not showing the builder.
If I were a buyer I would like to know who´s building my guitar is. Its like some woman says, you can tell how the man is by looking at his shoes. (I guess thats why I am single hahaha.)

PS- I am also on a mac, Pc is crap !!! hahaha.

Sincerely Lars.

Well then I will help you by saying that you need to change the "I" on FIgured Western Maple at the price page. .

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Rich S

"The inconvenience of poor quality will linger long after the thrill of a bargain has been forgotten"

Kent,

Nice site! Ran through it with Camino and Safari and everything clicks.

Pat

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com